You shake a handful of pebbles
between your palms. You were saying
this many sleeping pills and an old
tapping shoe. I would never know you
comes to mind but weakens
like the color red. The sunset, red.
The cherry of your cigarette
and the brilliant cardinal go dark.

Poetry spun off our bodies
was a line of yours. I might have said
how water can focus the sight. Or,
ever notice the number of things
that are counting? Watches, blood,
the stars. They can tell the distance
you are from home; not a whit
about the “us” of you traveling there.

You roll the pebbles like dice.
It is your essential character to blow
on your empty palms for luck.
That, a gain in translation—the way
a body can revive and be beautiful.
You got lucky when someone thought
to look in on you. And I’m right.
Water does focus the sight.